Might We See the Rare Best Picture/Best Actress Double at This Year’s Oscars?

The Academy Awards have long had a gender-disparity problem in their Best Picture category. Simply put, actress-fronted movies get nominated far less frequently than actor-fronted movies. In particular, the Best Actress category enjoys a far weaker correlation to Best Picture than Best Actor has. The films that produce Best Actress nominees tend to be films that only get Best Actress nominations and few others. Think of it as the Wild problem, where that acclaimed 2014 film was only nominated for its actresses, Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern, but not in the other categories, including Best Picture.

Which is what makes the 2017 Oscar nominees so refreshing and remarkable. The five Best Actress nominees represent films that garnered a total of 30 Oscar nominations, as opposed to the 21 total nominations from the films in the Best Actor category. It’s incredibly rare that the Best Actress category outshines Best Actor in this metric — it’s only happened 5 other times since 1990.

There’s another remarkable milestone that stands a better-than-decent chance of happening this year: Best Picture and Best Actress could go to the same film for only the 12th time in the 90-year history of the Academy Awards. For comparison’s sake, Best Picture and Best Actor have matched up 11 times just since 1975, and 27 times in total.

This year, there are four opportunities for a Picture/Actress double, though we can probably safely rule out Meryl Streep and The Post as very unlikely (which is insane, given how good both Streep and the film are). But otherwise, our three best chances are:

Frances McDormand and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Both won big at the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild, and while Three Billboards has lost a lot of momentum since director Martin McDonagh wasn’t nominated at the Oscars, there’s still a chance that the controversial film and its powerhouse lead actress could earn matching Oscars.

Saoirse Ronan and Lady Bird. Ronan is likely running a strong second to McDormand in the Best Actress race. She won the Comedy/Musical Actress Golden Globe, and she’s on her third Oscar nomination in her still-young career. Still, Lady Bird still feels like a longshot to win Best Picture, despite the fact that it’s the best-reviewed movie of the year and also perfect.

Sally Hawkins and The Shape of Water. The most-nominated film of 2017, The Shape of Water has moved itself into the top-contender slot in Best Picture. Despite delivering a phenomenally impressive performance as a mute woman, though, Sally Hawkins is a bit of a longshot to win Best Actress. Still, if the film is surging, who’s to say it can’t sweep Hawkins along with it?

Given the rarity of the Best Actress/Best Picture double, you could actually turn this eleven-film list into a kind of Oscar-season binge, taking down all eleven films, all of which are available to either stream or rent. It’s a list that spans the 1930s up to the 21st century, includes everything from romantic comedies to provocative dramas, horror classics to historical epics.

1

'Million Dollar Baby' (2004)

Best Actress: Hilary Swank

The most recent instance of the Best Picture winner also producing a Best Actress winner was the boxing drama Million Dollar Baby. Swank was already a fairly recent Oscar winner (for 1999’s Boys Don’t Cry), and once again she was up against Annette Bening, whose Being Julia performance was strong but in service of a movie few people saw and even fewer truly loved. Swank, meanwhile, was crashing the party with Clint Eastwood’s late-breaking phenomenon, playing an underdog lady boxer who suffers a tragic fate. Long story short: Annette Bening is still waiting for her first Oscar.

'Shakespeare in Love' (1998)

Best Actress: Gwyneth Paltrow

There was little doubt that Gwyneth Patrow was going home with the Oscar at the ’98 Academy Awards. Her biggest competition was Cate Blanchett for her breakthrough role in Elizabeth. But Paltrow was the It Girl of the late ’90s, and there would be no denying her. The bigger surprise was that Shakespeare in Love was able to upset Saving Private Ryan in the top category in a still-controversial decision.

'The Silence of the Lambs' (1991)

Best Actress: Jodie Foster

The surprise sweep of the top categories pulled off by The Silence of the Lambs brought with it a second Best Actress trophy for Jodie Foster, who had previously won in 1988 for The Accused. But as accomplished as she was for her Accused performance, her Clarice Starling in Silence was an instantly iconic creation.

'Driving Miss Daisy' (1989)

Best Actress: Jessica Tandy

Going into the 1989 Oscars, there was a lot of speculation over the Best Picture category, mostly because, while Driving Miss Daisy was the frontrunner, its director, Bruce Beresford, wasn’t nominated at all. There was a lot of speculation that Oliver Stone’s Born on the 4th of July might take the top prize instead. But no, on the strength of Jessica Tandy’s lead performance, Driving Miss Daisy rode its status as the sentimental favorite to the win. And at age 80, Jessica Tandy became the oldest Best Actress winner of all time, a distinction that still holds.

'Terms of Endearment' (1983)

Best Actress: Shirley MacLaine

Perhaps best known for her sparklingly perfect Best Actress acceptance speech (“I’m crying because this show has been as long as my career”), Shirley MacLaine’s lead performance in the James L. Brooks film Terms of Endearment is truly one of the great performances in her long and storied career. It’s a movie that’s become notorious for the tears it elicits from its audience, but there is a blend of comedy and drama in the film that is really hard to replicate (many films have tried). MacLaine’s win is also one of only three Best Actress wins by a film that won Best Picture and did not have a corresponding Best Actor nomination. Instead, MacLaine bested her co-star, Debra Winger.

'Annie Hall' (1977)

Best Actress: Diane Keaton

We have to look at Annie Hall a little cock-eyed now, given the persistence of the Woody Allen allegations. In particular, Diane Keaton’s continued defense of her friend, ex, and former director makes it harder and harder to push all extraneous considerations to the side and just appreciate the performance. Which is a shame, because Keaton’s Oscar win is a hugely deserved one for one of the great comedy performances ever to win in this category.

'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' (1975)

Best Actress: Louise Fletcher

Louise Fletcher was swept up in the landslide that brought Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. While the film is primarily known for Jack Nicholson’s lead performance as Randall Patrick McMurphy, Fletcher’s villainous turn as Nurse Ratched remains one of the most indelible antagonist performances in all of film. Fletcher’s Oscar win was made especially poignant when she signed part of her acceptance speech as a tribute to her deaf parents.

'Mrs. Miniver' (1942)

Best Actress: Greer Garson

Yes, that time jump is accurate: Greer Garson was the last woman to win Best Actress for a Best Picture-winning film for thirty-three years. That is, frankly insane, and it’s the only thing that makes the fact that it’s only happened three times since 1990 even a little palatable. Six of Garson’s seven career Best Actress nominations came within a seven-year stretch from 1939 (when she was nominated for Goodbye, Mr. Chips but lost to Vivien Leigh for Gone with the Wind) to 1945 (when she lost to Joan Crawford for Mildred Pierce). But Mrs. Miniver is the crown jewel of that stretch, as Garson played the title character, a British housewife in the early days of World War II.

'Gone with the Wind' (1939)

Best Actress: Vivien Leigh

Speaking of Greer Garson, here’s the woman who beat her to that first Oscar. Gone with the Wind is one of the most legendary American motion pictures of all times, though not one without an enduring controversy given the way it depicted the Civil War-era South so romantically. Still, Leigh won the first of her two Best Actress awards for her iconic turn as Scarlett O’Hara, before the film itself took home Best Picture.

'The Great Ziegfeld' (1936)

Best Actress: Luise Rainer

At the 1936 Oscars, German-American actress Luise Rainer won the first of two consecutive Best Actress wins. For 30 years, she was the only woman to win this award back-to-back, until Katharine Hepburn pulled off wins in 1967 (for Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner) and 1968 (for The Lion in Winter). Rainer played the real-life Anna Held, wife of Florenz Ziegfeld, the theater producer behind the famed Ziegfeld Follies.

'It Happened One Night' (1934)

photo: Everett Collection

Best Actress: Claudette Colbert

It’s fascinating that in the first 12 years of the Oscars, Best Actress and Best Picture coincided three times, and then only seven more times in the following 78 years. The first instance happened at the 7th annual Academy Awards, when French actress Claudette Colbert took home Best Actress for her role opposite Clark Gable in the defining American romantic comedy, It Happened One Night. This was the first film to ever sweep all the top Oscar categories, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Gable, and Best Director for Frank Capra.